I Found a Purpose
Issue #3
Hi guys,
We have a purpose!
A few days ago I finally realized what I want this newsletter to be about. I’ve known all along that I‘m not interested in writing about music here, because that’s what I do on my YouTube channel. But I have a pretty wide range of interests and it seems unlikely that I’ll find an audience that wants to read about how I use Notion, how my Japanese studies are going, and what Nintendo games I’m playing at the moment!
So what to do?
I’ve noticed the common theme around most of what I share and am interested in is productivity and creativity, or being a prolific creator. This newsletter is an example of that very idea, by starting it and producing regularly I’m already seeing improvement and benefit.
Sure I don’t have a lot of subscribers, but that’s not really the point. What I do have is a platform to share my progress, what’s going through my mind on any given Friday, and the opportunity to spend time to refine my focus.
The Productive Creative is a working title I have in my mind for a future blog, YouTube channel, or who knows what else. A place to share and discuss what works, and what doesn’t, in getting people to produce their best work. And in most cases this means helping people to make as much work as they possibly can, because that’s the only guaranteed way to develop the skills and experience to produce something great.
So if you are someone who makes things and you want to learn how to be more productive doing it, I hope you’ll join me every Friday as I share my thoughts and recommendations.
Until next time,
Ryan
This Week’s Recommendations
Blog - Mark Forster
Mark Forster is the most underrated “productivity guru” on my radar. He is constantly trying new things, experimenting with his systems, sharing his successes and failures, and clearly gets a lot done with his time!
I absolutely love his Final Version Perfected system, which is an incredible way to finally tackle those tasks on your to-do list that have been rotting in procrastination limbo.Video - Advice on Learning Momentum
A short but really valuable video from the author of the Japanese From Zero books. He tells a story about how he learned the hard way to break down his teaching material into smaller chunks, which helped his students better understand and absorb the lessons.
This is really important for me to remember, because I tend to take a lot of my harmony and other music theory knowledge for granted. I often just spit out terms like “Dorian mode” or “secondary dominant” while I’m talking about something without thinking about if those terms are completely meaningless to the people watching.
One solution is simply to make more videos and be able to point to those when the topic comes up, so that I don’t disrupt the flow.App - Notion
As a fan of GTD, I used Things for many years. But because they put so much emphasis on simplicity, there were too many limitations on how I could organize or view my tasks and projects.
A few months ago I discovered Notion and fell in love. It isn’t really “designed” for task management, in a lot of ways it feels like it isn’t really designed for anything, you have to figure it out yourself. It admittedly takes a fair amount of work to get it how you want, but I’m currently very happy with my setup. I’m able to be very specific about how I sort my (admittedly too long) to do list, so that I always know I’m working on the most important things.
What I’m Reading
Superfans: The Easy Way to Stand Out, Grow Your Tribe, And Build a Successful Business
I’m a believer in the 1000 True Fans theory, that you don’t need to build a massive multi-million group of followers to have success. This book dives into this theory and the author explains his own rise to success. I’m reading it right now as I begin my YouTube channel to help develop my focus and figure out what I should be doing next.
Really I think just consistently making videos for a very long time will get me 80% of the way there, but what about that other 20%?
As of this writing I started posting videos about three weeks ago and have a massive following of 22 subscribers. The climb to 1000 seems pretty steep still...
Get comfortable sharing things about yourself and your life, perhaps outside of the realm of your niche but also more personal, in order to bring attention to the person behind the brand and foster meaningful connections with your audience. - Pat Flynn